IMD _Institute of Media and Design
copyright _IMD
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | Master Design Project | Info.Tecture | Berlin
In close proximity to the former Main Train Station of the GDR, the now called “Ostbahnhof” in Friedrichshain, there is one of the few remaining voids in the pattern of Berlin’s urban fabric. The site is bordered by a 200m Plattenbau to its North and train tracks to its South. Here, the collaged pattern of Berlin’s city genesis is visible and perceptible.
The GDR’s urban development with its well-known Plattenbau housing projects and the ideological motivated architectural layout of the Karl-Marx-Allee (former Stalin Allee) defines the northern area. To the west, the money-driven transformation of the area with the “Media Spree” development plans that now are under construction are going to house many global and world-famous companies’ headquarters. Next to them, the touristy Eastside-Gallery, the longest kept section of the Berlin wall that was transformed into an open air mural art gallery borders the Spree river. South of the site, across the Spree river, Kreuzberg with its squatted houses, rich history of anarchistic, artistic cultural and sub-cultural projects and experiments pushes different ideas about urban development and concepts of life.
Within this intersection of different stakeholders, motives, ideas, ideologies and forces the master theses deal with the challenge of not having a defined program or brief, but to develop a vision for an architectural project.
Through extensive research a personal concept and strategy lead to approaches that differ not only in architectural design but also in size, program, concept, strategy, social and political impact as well as their timelines.
Directed by: Nicolai Schlapps
Student work by: Aljosa Bjelotomic & Firat Ertegi, Iris Jander, Povilas Sileikis, Marc André Tiede, Liu Xiang
Photography © Nicolai Schlapps